based companies is poised to cause a stir in the post community next month at NAB 99: Avid Technology, Tewksbury, and Lowell-based startup SynaPix.
Avids featured products will include an uncompressed version (8.0) of its flagship Mac-based Media Composer-code-named Swirl according to reliable sources-whose development was announced last summer as Media Composer Online. Avid is also scheduled to preview HD editing capabilities.
Swirl is scheduled to ship soon after NAB, and this should come as great news to the thousands of commercial editors who have been hoping to offer noncompressed output from their Media Composers. Additionally, Avid promises to preview upcoming features for its Symphony and Softimage|DS NT-based nonlinear editing systems.
At press time Avid was providing little information about the HD product-including whether it would be a new system or an enhancement to an existing product. Avid president Cliff Jenks did reveal that the company aims to have this HDTV editing system ready for the fall TV season. Avid is expected to make further HD announcements before NAB.
At NAB 99, Lowell-based startup SynaPix will be housed in a new, larger booth and will demonstrate a beta version of its SynaFlex analysis, choreography and compositing software, whose technology demo at NAB 98 took the post community by storm.
SynaFlex converts 2-D film and video into 3-D, and provides a 3-D workspace to combine CG and real images. It allows the artist to work in a 3-D structure with camera movement, reducing or eliminating the need for rotoscoping, matting and layering. The aim is for the product to also become the industry leader in visualization for prepro, production and post applications.
Last week, SynaPix co-founder/president/CEO Curt Rawley (who is a co-founder and former president/CEO at Avid) sat down for an exclusive pre-NAB interview with SHOOT. SynaPix also gave SHOOT a sneak peak at the latest developments in SynaFlex, which at press time was in alpha testing at New York-based Splash and Click 3X (Click also has offices in Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco.), and is expected to enter beta around the end of the month.
Rawley is methodical in his approach to this ambitious project. He is well aware of the high level of anticipation in the post community, so he touts his solid long-term vision for the company, but is presently focused on developing version 1.0 as a product customers can use today. We still have a long way to go, Rawley said. The technology holds an incredible amount of promise. It will get richer over time.
He emphasizes that step one is to deliver SynaFlex version 1.0 during Q2, so that it will immediately do useful work for customers … It will justify itself. Then there will be more to follow.
NAB 99 attendees will see a new SynaFlex this year; most importantly, it is now a working product. Other developments: SynaFlex now runs on an NT operating system. (Last year it was demoed on an Onyx.) SynaPix developed a new user interface-simpler and more efficient-based on feedback from potential customers. Rawley said the company perfected visual stream analysis, which he defined as the deriving of camera path and scene structure from a sequence of moving images. SynaFlex also now supports OMF.
The first release of SynaFlex supports 601 video; Rawley said the architecture was developed so that it would become a resolution-independent product. He added that version 1.0 would ship as a turnkey product, likely running on an Intergraph NT workstation. There are roughly 35 engineers-most of the company employees-developing the product.
For SynaPix chief product specialist Ken Eyring-who comes to the company from R/GA Digital Studios, New York, where he was a visual effects supervisor and head of operations-the tools mean that artists can make creative decisions with the clients in the room. He also thinks it will eliminate the need to sign off on projects in stages. He said with SynaFlex, agencies have the ability to go back and make changes at any level.
On the business side, SynaPix has been busy securing new investors; to date is has raised $14 million. In February, SynaPix acquired Alchemy 3D Technology. Alchemy is perhaps best recognized for developing the recovery engine for Alias| Wavefronts Maya Live. It is currently developing Matchmaker camera tracking software that will be available during Q2 as a stand-alone product for O2 and Octane, and as an NT-based module for SynaFlex.
More Avid
Meanwhile, back to Avid, which will sport a new booth at the Las Vegas Convention Center next month, bringing under its roof Softimage, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avid, acquired last summer.
In addition to the aforementioned Avid announcements, Jenks hinted that Avid would introduce a revolutionary storage and networking system to enable facility-wide collaboration.
Avids Softimage subsidiary will demonstrate its flagship Softimage|3D system, and the more integrated environment in its next-generation 3-D software, code-named Sumatra. Sumatra and renderer Twister are scheduled to ship during Q4.
This is, of course, the latest change in release date. Sumatra and Twisters release was postponed numerous times while Softimage was under the Microsoft umbrella. Jenks acknowledged some disappointment about Sumatras longer than expected development cycle, but emphasized we are going be very competitive when we launch.
Chyron
Chyron recently held a pre-NAB press conference, which focused on version 1.0 of its now shipping Duet HD graphics platform and introduced some Duet applications.
Chief among the new applications is Chyrons Lyric 1.0 graphic composition and playout software. Lyric/Duet for HD is scheduled to ship in May for $69,900. It is a resolution independent application that handles all SD or HD formats, including 1080I, 720P, and 1080/24P.
Beta versions of Duet HD with Lyric shipped during Q4 of 98 to users such as The Tape House, New York; Henninger Video and Roland House, Arlington, Va.; Modern VideoFilm, Burbank, Calif.; American Production Services, Seattle; Laser-Pacific, Burbank and Hollywood; as well as to TV stations and cable networks.
We are very enthusiastic about customer reaction so far, especially for high-definition applications, said Alec Shapiro, senior VP, sales and marketing, Americas. Weve placed Duet into some of the most demanding environments for the most demanding customers, and initial marketplace acceptance has been enthusiastic.
Lyric provides text, graphics, and animation capabilities in an object-oriented program. It offers tools such as browsers, timelines, preferences, undo, and spell check.
Chyron also made some partner announcements, including a joint marketing arrangement with Munich-headquartered Peak Systems. The companies will market Peaks Everest real-time 3-D animation graphics software with Duet or Duet HD. (Incidentally, Everest development is led by Peak founder Karl-Heinz Klotz, who was previously employed by Discreet Logic [now Discreet, see story p. 1] where he led the development of Frost and Vapour.)
This combination will provide Chyron with an exciting first entry into 3-D applications to offer to our current base of graphics customers in broadcast, cable and teleproduction, Shapiro said.
A dual-channel Duet/Everest package will be available at NAB at a targeted list price of about $100,000.
Puffin
At NAB, Sausalito-based Puffin Designs will announce that it is migrating its Commotion paint, effects, rotosplining and motion tracking software to the NT environment. It is currently available for the Mac. Commotion 2.0 for Mac is in beta and scheduled to ship around the NAB. The NT version is expected to be available by SIGGRAPH A99.
New features of 2.0 include: third party plug-in support for Knoll Lens Flare Pro, ICEfx, Ultimatte, and others; FX brushes, paint tools that let you create unlimited texture and media brushes; and the new Motion text plug-in allowing users to integrate text within their effects work.
Commotion beta sites include Spontaneous Combustion and 89 Greene Editorial, New York; and Cutters, Chicago.
Puffin was founded in 97 and began shipping Commotion only 17 months ago. Puffin president Forest Key said it has since attracted over 3000 users, with about 80 percent using the software for commercial work. He said Puffins commercial reel will be shown at NAB and features spots for such clients as Kraft, Amoco, First Union and Fruit of the Loom.
Key explained that Puffins aim is to expand, but down market, not into the high end. We are pursuing the best functionality at best price points … to reach broader market, he explained.
